The Centro de Arte José Cáceres O. is not far from my house, and I have been taking painting classes there with Víctor Aguirre Chirú. (There isn’t much about him or the school on line except for their Facebook page HERE) It is an interesting and growing school offering classes in music, dance, and art. There is an occasional adult student but the majority of them are children, and many of them are very young children.
Last night they had a very well attended event and art exhibition.
There was some social time for the crowd and beautiful guitar music by José Cáceres. Then people from the school, including one of the students, addressed the crowd.
Some of the youngest students were brought on stage and honored for their achievements in art, dance, and music. Then, there was an interesting dance performance, a shadow dance behind a large piece of fabric.
Next was a drawing for gifts, one of which was a small painting by Chirú, and then dinner was served. There were long breaks between each activity for socializing, and dinner took a while too. Small plates were made up as people came through with green salad, potato salad, a bit of chicken, a piece of sandwich, and a square of flan for dessert. But, it was all very good. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone though and by now I was tired of standing. We decided to call it a night but Chirú caught us on the way out and took us to the kitchen for a celebratory glass of wine.
What a nice evening. I’ll leave you with a ton of photos of the art work. There was art outside, inside, and on every available flat surface! Keep in mind that many of these students are as young as four, and the more advanced looking paintings are probably done by students around 10-14 years old. Unfortunately the information included the name, but not the age of the student on each painting or drawing so I can’t say the age of the specific artist.
I’ve really enjoyed art classes. I like working beside the little kids and seeing how well they do, and I am enjoying exploring my own abilities with paint and canvas. You just never know what interesting things you may end up doing, especially when you are retired and your time is your own.
The Panama Adventure 
Hola Kris,
About the only thing I can draw is bath water and a crowd, and I often mess up the bath water. I would LOVE to be able to draw something other than engineering diagrams. Nena, both our boys, and all four grands (all in grade school) have tons of art talent. Nena has done sketches or painting of the family over the years that are wonderful to have. Nena isn’t much good with a power saw or air nailer though so I guess I’ll just keep doing that?
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We all have our different abilities, and that makes the world a much more interesting place.
My husband introduced me to power tools though, and I loved them immediately. Air nailer? Oh yeah. BAM! done. Much better than a hammer.
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I did get Nena an air stapler when we were doing upholstery. The manual and even electric staplers would not touch the oak frames on well made furniture. I showed her how to load and connect it and walked away. Three steps and she sent a staple past my head with 140 PSI behind it!! She tried to get me to do the rest of the stapling but I convinced her is was just an accident. She got very good at it with a little practice.
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I think there are a lot of things women would be doing if they had some instruction and confidence, like power tools. You can do more work with less muscle so why not!
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All three of my grand daughters are going to be self-sufficient. Nena can paint, lay tile and hardwood flooring, hang pictures, and with a little help, install doors and windows. Oh, she does well at bricklaying, better than I can (more patience). She has changed the oil in her car but she usually tricks me into doing it somehow?! She LOVES yardwork including mowing. She is a pro at sewing (the very first home POWER tool). Gals only need guys who know what they are doing (rare) to get started and with the internet and youtube, I am not sure the guys are going to be needed at all.
The enormous DIY industry has put a big dent in crafts and skills people.
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That’s good! Joel and I both love being self sufficient. You know it is done right, and you don’t have to depend on others. But thankfully there are others who can’t or don’t want to do their own work, so people like Joel continue to have jobs.
I love yard work too and I’ve even learned to use the weed wacker, the Panamanian lawn mower. My neighbors think I’m nuts for doing all that, but I explain that it is my therapy. Working in the yard listening to a good audiobook, life just doesn’t get any better than that.
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